Montoya puts costly mistake behind him

Montoya, who earlier missed two races with a shoulder injury, is still looking for his first victory since the Brazilian Grand Prix last year.

Juan Pablo Montoya knew he was in trouble as soon as his McLaren team failed to call him into the pits under caution.

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The miscommunication cost him a disqualification in last week's Canadian Grand Prix, a race he was leading and had a chance to win in an otherwise disappointing season in Formula One. "I thought it was going to be a good race to the end," Montoya said Thursday, a day before the start of practice for the US Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "The safety car came out. We were discussing what pace to do because we had a 30-second lead."

The trouble started at Montreal when pole-sitter Jenson Button crashed. With the field under caution to clean up debris, McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen went to the pits while teammate Montoya stayed on the track. But Montoya came in on the next lap and passed a red stop light as he exited pit road, leading to the disqualification by race stewards.

"I saw the red light and I said (on the radio), 'Do we come in or not?"' Montoya said. "I don't think they heard me. I decided to go through it. It was my mistake in a way."

McLaren boss Ron Dennis said the team should have brought Montoya in with Raikkonen, but Montoya misread the pit signs. Dennis lobbied in vain for a drive-through penalty rather than outright disqualification, but by that time, Montoya's chance for victory already was lost.

"I thought it was very harsh, to be honest," Montoya said. "But I'm over it."

Raikkonen went on to win the race, his third victory of the season, and pulled within 22 points of F1 series leader Fernando Alonso after eight races this season. Montoya, who earlier missed two races with a shoulder injury, is 11th in points, still looking for his first victory since the Brazilian Grand Prix last year, when he was driving for the BMW Williams team.

"It's been a tough season for me," he said. "The (McLaren) team has been very supportive. The first race (after the injury) was very hard for me. I could hardly drive the car with the pain. ... It's been frustrating. They know I can do the job. I proved the last race I can do it."

His best finishes this season were fourth at Malaysia and fifth at Monaco.

"For me, the most important thing was I was struggling to drive the car quickly, and I did (at Montreal)."

Montoya said he had no thoughts of coming into the pits on his own, without the summons by his team.

"You have to work with the team," he said. "What happens if I go into the pits and they say, 'What are you doing here?' If you don't trust the team, you shouldn't be racing for them." Qualifying for the U.S. Grand Prix will be Saturday; the race is Sunday.

Another struggling driver is seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher, who has won three times at Indianapolis but is winless this season.

Schumacher was second at Montreal last week, matching his best finish this year, but has failed to finish three times and is fifth in the point standings

"The point is, the development rate of Formula One is extremely quick," said Schumacher, who dominated the series with 13 wins, including Indianapolis, a year ago. "We had quite an advantage last year. ... Quite frankly we, as a whole package, probably didn't do as good a job as we did last year. The other teams have done a very good job, which leveled out the situation."

His Ferrari teammate, Rubens Barrichello, is seventh in points, with his best finish second in the opener at Australia. But Schumacher said he wasn't discouraged by the team's performance. "There are phases like this where you're not so successful ... so I knew this would come," he said. "As long as you're competitive, I'm pretty happy to go through this as we make our way up to the front again."